A. A documentary about Shaq and his buddies on vacation in Daytona Beach.

B. Something that Sigfried and Roy do with eels.

C. A family film about an enchanted sea monster.

The correct answer is ''C,'' although either ''A'' or ''B'' might have been more interesting.

Magic in the Water is lamely hip in that bad-Muppet-imitation way that children's entertainment sometimes is. This barely coherent kiddie flick ought to sink swiftly without a trace.

The plot concerns a couple of youngsters from Seattle, Ashley (Sarah Wayne) and Josh (Joshua Jackson), who, with their divorced, detached dad (Mark Harmon), encounter a Loch Ness knockoff called Orky (rhymes with ''dorky'') while on vacation in Canada. Ashley lures the friendly creature with Oreo cookies - a gambit that strongly recalls the Reese's Pieces episode in E.T.

What starts off as innocuous, if derivative, becomes increasingly tedious and jumbled as plot points are added. These include points concerning group-therapy sessions, talk radio, a Japanese boy and a wise old Indian.

It makes sense that the villains are evil polluters because director/co-writer Rick Stevenson is heavily into recycling. Recycling stuff from other movies, that is.

For some reason, Orky isn't shown until near the end, and then only briefly. At first, I thought this was an attempt to build suspense, but after a while, I began to suspect that the high cost of sea-monster footage was the real explanation.

In any case, Stevenson goes so far as to kill off poor Orky right in front of the kids. Then, as if realizing he had gone too far, the filmmaker arranges for his creature inexplicably to return from the dead.